A Balanced Approach to Wellness

Countries group people by location, historical development, and geographical reality, which nationalistic feelings elevate.

Superiority by nationality is the viewing of all other nationalities in a condescending way. Feeling better than everyone who lives outside one’s own country is a sense of superiority that is confrontational behavior and enemy building.

Geographical reality creates differences among countries, because some countries are situated with enviable conditions and resources that inspire jealousy or resentment.

A country possessing enviable conditions and resources often maintains citizens who feel entitled to their reality and are possessive of it. Adjacent countries may have conditions and resources that are also deserving of pride, but the other country’s richness seems desirous, and so, the citizens of the adjacent countries may feel resentful or covetous. The clash of entitlement and resentment can lead to rivalries, racism, and wars.

Superiority by nationality describes relationships among countries, but it can also describe relationships among areas within a country, towns within a province, neighborhoods within a city, and loyalty to schools or universities.

At each level, location, historical development, and geographical reality affect how citizens see their environment and the environments of those who inhabit rival territories. Those who feel they have more behave differently from those who feel deprived. Each side can feel superior and relate to the other as less than. The feelings of superiority at the smaller levels can lead to rivalries, treachery, and self-destruction.

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People receive the life they are born into and some receive more ease than others, but their circumstances do not entitle them to feel superior. The more a person has, the more he or she should feel grateful and open to those with less.